In 2005 the Senegal Ecovillage Network hosted 10 nutrition interns from Laval University
who did an excellent job of social marketing research with
women home-makers. Together they launched our first solar
oven project in the town of Mekhe, and produced a cookbook
of Senegalese Solar Oven recipes. Three 2006 summer
interns, two junior engineering students from the local
Polytechnic, and team leader engineer Melissa Zgola, from
Engineers for a Sustainable World (ESW) collected excellent
evaluation data for this program, not all of which has yet been
analyzed. One of the analyses, however, which we hope to
capitalize on later, was carried out by Jeff Leopando from
Harvard College in 2007. Jeff succeeded in controling for
substitutions effects, as women used more poluting wood and
charcoal cooking fuel to offset the rise in cost of butane. He
demonstrated that each well-functioning oven offset an
average of 4 MT (metric tons) of CO2 emissions per year.
University of Minnesota Intern Hannah Gelder, continued
work on CO2 offsetting both for us and for the regional office
of the Global Environmental Fund. This solar oven initiative in
Meckhe has started a new project phase. The Minister of
Science & Technology visited the new oven project last week
and approved of the solar-cooked national favorite fish with
rice dish “Thieb-u Dien.” -it’s moving!